repost: downpours, quinceañera, and sisterly lessons

A little more than a year ago, I wrote this post on a strange collection of events/lessons. This morning a re-read made me chuckle, so I’m hoping it also brings you some kind of Tuesday relief.

(from April 18, 2010 post)

Since I believe apologies are not acceptable, I’m moving very quickly past the place where I might make one for not writing in so long. With a few well-placed headlines, I’ll let you in on some of the goings-on here in Tegus while I eat some deeee-licious Honduran-style beef stew.

torrential downpourLast Friday night was the overnighter event for the elementary kids. Though I’m not involved in the outreach with the little ones, they asked me to help with the game CLUE that our HS students had come up with a few months back for our own outreach event. … And play human CLUE we surely did! We ran to different “rooms” and played games in order to receive clues and try to solve the mystery.

After all that madness ended (God give me grace when I have crazy, screaming little ones!), I loaded up good ‘ole Louis and down the mountain we went. (I still don’t have a muffler, but I’m working on it and I’ve told myself that’s good enough right now.)

The rain started just before we threw backpacks into the trunk and ourselves into the seats. We didn’t get very far before I realized that this ride down the mountain would be less about what music we were rocking out to and more about getting down safely. I was wiping the windshield with one hand and steering with the other. It was foggy in addition to the less-than-stellar defrost sputtering out of my dashboard. The girls were respectful and less crazy, but the rain kept coming. We prayed.

I successfully dropped off one student and then we came upon a lake in the road. Yep, it was a lake almost as big as the pond behind my house where we went swimming. And it was still raining. I kind of just followed the lights in front of me, but definitely felt we floated for a second or two.

On the way back, we encountered the same lake and I had to turn around after watching a car sink too low for my comfort. So, I made all the drop-offs and arrived at my house with a curious scraping sound accompanying me. Yep, that’s right… last week Louis lost a muffler and this week he’s dragging something on the front end. These roads are shaking him to pieces – literally! But, praise God for safety and PRAISE GOD for rain!

Today, I was on my hands and knees inspecting the damage like a real trooper. I like to think my brother William would be proud, but he would probably ask if I fixed the problem and then I would have to say no. I’m not really sure what the purpose of that silly, sturdy piece of plastic… and I couldn’t figure out how to jimmy-rig it up with rope, so I just shoved in a few places and hope that it will stay in place long enough for me to get to someone more handy!

quinceañera

When you turn 15 here, it’s like a sweet 16 party but much, MUCH bigger! I’m talking color-coordinated decorations, a ‘program’ of events for the night, three special music performances, high schoolers in suits, fake champagne, super fancy dresses, a sermon, a serenade, a video, and lots of fun. And that’s where you would have found me on Saturday night – in heels my dad found at a thrift store and a dress my mom sent me a few years ago that I hemmed and altered for fun. It was a beautiful way to celebrate Jennifer’s life and also a great, grand introduction to the Honduran tradition of quinceañera!

sister

Have I told you how much I love my sister? Probably not, because she’s gets uncomfortable when people get mushy (which of course is my specialty). Well, tonight as we were talking, I remembered how much I loved her all over again. It seems we always swap stories of our mishaps and mistakes. I think we sound like broken records, but I guess I’m encouraged that much more – that we are sisters in our repetition. You see, it doesn’t matter if the stories from work seem not to have moved in a week or if our hearts are struggling in the same ways we thought we’d moved on from, or if our haphazard living styles have not moved to a less-embarrassing state… it doesn’t matter because we love and encourage each other in the midst of all the mess.

Today, as we were talking … I started to share about my current dream-squasher: fatigue and failure.

I want to press on, but I’m tired.

I want to believe change will come, but failure creeps on my shoulder like an ugly monster.

Anyway, no surprise, right? You’ve heard this before if you know me at all. I had an imaginary conversation with my mom a few weeks ago, when I was knee-deep in stress about my students and their decisions.

Honey, she told me, the BEST you can do is pursue your Savior with your whole heart.

I said, I know.

She said, do you have anyone to sharpen you and push you deeper and further into your pursuit of Christ?

Not really, I said.

Well, she said, maybe in this time God is trying to teach you that He is all-sufficient.

You know, I was trying to have some time with the Lord the other day and I kept trying to wrestle Him into giving me answers and get productive with my time. Finally, I just decided to be with Him… to sing and praise and love and honor Him. I realized I just needed to be with Him, not to just ask Him to figure out my problems.

I give up on things and let my dreams get squashed into the pavement because I try to have hope in an end HERE… I go to God hoping He will give me more tools to be effective instead of trusting Him to work.

I want results when I love people. I want improvement.

I want something significant to come out of gas money and coffee dates.

I want something spectacular to prove God’s glory here.

Well, guess what? God’s glory does not need proven.

My desire to see results shows that I am not TRUSTING in His plan to reveal His glory. If I really want eternal results, then I will throw myself into time with my Savior and trust He will work all things according to His will and purpose. And who am I to doubt His work will be significant?

Thanks, sister, for reminding me that time with my Savior does not need to end with a ‘take-away’ objectives and keys to unlock more ministry.